Redemption
by clmaki
Summary: A continuation of Stephen King's Dark Tower series, beginning after Roland reaches the Dark Tower and opens the door on the endless desert again. Definitely still in progress, so check often for new chapters!
1. The story continues

The gunslinger staggered, his feet dragging in the endless sands as he trudged through the desert. Swimming in front of his tanned and weather-beaten face were images of lost loved ones- first Cuthbert Allgood and Alain Johns, then Susan Delgado and poor Sheemie, and then Pere Callahan, and finally Eddie Dean, Susannah Dean, Oy, and, last, always last, Jake Chambers, most beloved of them all. His legs burned with exhaustion and the swirling sands were clotting in his throat, choking him as he struggled to push on.

He had to follow the man in black, had to catch Walter O'Dim…

Before his eyes, he saw them all leaving again, Eddie with a hole in his head, whispering goodbyes to each of the Ka-Tet in turn, then Cuthbert with an arrow through his eye, then Susan burning alive in Mejis as Rhea of the Coos laughed in the background. Next, he saw Oy lying sprawled in the branches of a tree, impaled, and then it was Susannah, leaving through a magical door to a world in which Jake and Eddie were waiting…

He could see snow swirling through that door, and Eddie and Jake holding cups of steaming, hot liquid that smelled delicious. Eddie and Jake were very much alive, and he could see Oy, his crazy corkscrew tail wagging, bounding into the doorway, crying "Oland, Oland!" Susan was turning around on her strong, dark legs- her new legs- and Jake was holding his hands out, calling "Hile, Father!" They could all be together again, their lost Ka-Tet, never to be separated again… But then a monstrous, seven-legged spider with blue bombardier's eyes was crawling out of the sand, reaching up with one of its grotesque legs and slamming the door shut. The gunslinger opened his mouth, letting out a cry of anguish.

_"AAAAAAAAHHHHRRRRRGHHHH!"_

………

"AAAAAAAAHHHHRRRRRGHHHH!"

In a tiny house near the outskirts of Mid-World, Roland Deschain cried out in his feverish sleep. A gentle hand sponged his forehead with a damp rag. A young woman was seated next to the bed where the tall man lay, a basin of cool water in her lap. He thrashed once to the left, then to the right, then lay still. The woman dipped the rag into her chipped stone basin again, wringing the cloth out with her free hand, and then applied it to his neck and bare chest, which heaved as though he had just finished a long run. Laying aside the basin, then, she took a tin cup from the low table next to the bed. It, too, was full of cool water, and she held it to the man's lips, propping his head up gently with her other arm. His lips parted almost automatically, and he drained the small cup.

His fever had come and gone, and the woman had been afraid that the man would slip into a quiet coma and then cross over to the Clearing at the End of the Path. Strangely, though, the man had held on through days of this sickness, and whenever she held a cup of water to his lips, the man would drink thirstily. Somewhere, deep beneath his haze, the man inside still wanted to carry on.

Some part of him knew that there was still something left to live for.


	2. The songs from nowhere

Most of the time, it was endless, sweltering desert. He trudged through the dunes with the roaring wind blowing stinging sand into his eyes, and images of those lost ones would flash before him, making his heart ache. He would watch them die all over again, each one's departure from this world a passing reminder of what he had destroyed in order to reach his goal- the topmost room of the cursed tower where he had opened the door into this desolate nothing.

Then he would see Susannah, leading him to the door, walking through on her strong, new legs. He only ever caught a glimpse of what was beyond that door- the swirling snow, and Eddie and Jake and Oy, waiting for him on the other side, laughing and waving and beckoning to him. How he longed to step over the threshold into that snowy wonderland…

But always at the last moment, as he was about to step through the door, Mordred would clamber up out of the dunes, slamming the door shut with one long, ugly leg. The thing would look at him with laughter in its startling blue eyes, and then it would descend back into the dunes.

It was at these times that the gunslinger wanted to give up. He wanted to lie down in the dunes and fade away to nothingness, letting the churning sands cover him until he was buried, lost, and forgotten.

But then, and always as he was about to collapse and never rise again, there was the music…

He could hear a woman singing, somewhere in the distance. Sometimes, as if from far away, it was a gentle, sweet melody. The words were not ones he could understand, but they were beautiful, like velvet - soft and smooth and warm. This song always reminded him of Jake, his son, lost forever and buried beneath a rose bush in the clearing beside a lonely highway near Lovell, Maine.

Sometimes her lovely, lilting voice would come to him, quieter and wavering, as if carried to him on the wind, singing a jaunty song that began with something about drinking wine with a bullfrog named Jeremiah. This song made little sense at all to the gunslinger, but it was so happy and full of life that he grew fond of it, despite its nonsense. In part, it was the nonsense he loved, for it reminded him of Eddie, the friend he lost at Algul Siento.

Then, at other times, sounding clearer than either of the others as if she were right next to him, would come the long, somber notes of a hymn.

"Amazing Grace," the voice sang out, "How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me…"

How sweet, indeed, this sound was. And it was saving the gunslinger, to be sure, calling him to it the way the Bright Star called the magi to the Man Jesus. The melody brought Susannah to his mind, and he could hear her speaking to him, a touch of Detta Walker coming through her voice.

"Oh, no you don't, you ugle ole honky," she would say over the beautiful melody. "You ain't jus' givin' up on us. You been to the top of the goddamn Dark Tower and you come miles and miles to get there. You done kill't wolves and Taheen and the Crimson King hisself on the way to that tower. You been across the beaches of the Western Sea, through the Wastelands on a crazy train, through the underbelly of Lud to rescue your boy. You freed all dem Breakers an' you danced the Commala for all of Calla Bryn Sturgis to see. You gone through too damn much, an' lost too damn much, for you to give up now jus' 'cause you _tired_."

That last word was all Detta, and she spat it like tobacco at the gunslinger's feet. In the end, it was the crazy old bitch with her taunting and her insults, along with the haunting disembodied voice on the winds, that kept the gunslinger holding on. He would continue on his way, desperate to reach the end of the swirling sands, to see his friends again, and to meet the woman whose beautiful songs had carried him across the desert.


	3. Audrey

Audrey Moran was singing to herself as she washed up the dishes from supper. When she was done, she would check on the man in her bedroom again. The door was closed, and when she'd left he had been sleeping peacefully. She had saved some of the hot broth from the soup they had eaten for supper, and she thought she would see if he would drink it, like he did the water.

Once, Audrey had known many songs from her own world, but her memories of those times had faded so much that she could only remember three in their entirety. Right now, she was singing "Joy to the World" - not the Christmas carol, but the one on her stepfather's Three Dog Night record. He used to put it on their dilapidated old record player, crank the volume, and whirl her around their basement kitchen, singing along to the music and dancing. It used to make her mother laugh. She smiled to herself at the thought as she belted out the chorus, scrubbing at the soup pot.

Sometimes, usually when she was in the bedroom at night, sewing in front of the fire with her dog, Sam, curled up at her feet, she would sing an old Gaelic lullaby her mother had sung for her when she was little.

_Bidh Clann an Rìgh, bidh Clann an Rìgh,  
Bidh Clann an Rìgh air do bhanais;  
Bidh Clann an Rìgh, seinnear a' phìob,  
Òlar am fìon air do bhanais._

She would sing it softly, almost in a whisper, as she stitched on a quilt or mended clothes.

The last song, which she had lately taken to singing while she was tending the stranger in her bed, was "Amazing Grace." She had gone to church as a girl, and out of all the singing they did each Sunday, this one had always been her favorite. By the time she was four, she knew all five verses, and she performed it all by herself in front of the congregation at age nine.

Whenever the man was restless, she would take up her basin and the damp rag, and bathe him in cool water as she sang the old hymn. The stranger's breathing would calm, his racing heart would slow its pace, and his body would relax into the mattress. Then he would drink his water, and drift into a peaceful sleep.

His fits were getting fewer and further between, which was good.

Audrey set the pot upside down to dry and flicked water from her hands. Then, wiping her fingers on a thin towel, she crossed to the oven. Inside was the bowl of broth for the stranger. She lifted the warm bowl with the towel wrapped around it and grabbed a spoon with her other hand. Sam, lying on a rug near the door, looked up from the floor, his brown eyes looking hungrily at the soup.

"You already ate, you old beggar," Audrey whispered to him, grinning. "Come and keep me company while I feed our new friend."

She opened the door off the kitchen that led into her bedroom, Sam at her heels, and crossed to the bedside where she had set up a chair. Setting the bowl of broth on the table, she gently brushed the man's long hair out of his face. He looked almost content, lying there in her bed.

She would need to stoke the fire once more before going to sleep. Outside the tiny cottage, the snow was swirling and the temperature was lower than it had been since the day the stranger had staggered into their yard.

Propping the stranger up gently with an extra pillow, Audrey tucked her warm blankets up around the man's belly and laid the towel over his chest. Sam sat beside her, his long muzzle resting on his paws. He watched as the woman took up the bowl, loaded the spoon with hot, strong broth and lowered it to the stranger's mouth. She ran the warm bowl of the spoon over his parched-looking lips, praying he would eat. To her delight, the man opened his mouth just the tiniest bit. Audrey poured the spoonful in, and the stranger swallowed hungrily, then opened his mouth, again just the tiniest bit, wanting more.

Yes, it definitely looked like the man would recover.

Audrey wondered who she would meet when the man's eyes finally opened.

* * *


	4. Visions in the desert

The gunslinger had seen mirages before, but never like these. They were blurred, as if he was seeing them through lenses smeared with oil, and they were different from the usual images that a stranded, despairing man would see; there was no desert oasis with beautiful palms and clear blue springs full of sweet cold water.

Instead, there was a dog.

Large, lean and muscular with long, thick brindled fur and a friendly face, this was a dog like no other he had seen in Mid-World. For one, it was not a Mutie. It had the proper number of legs, no more and no less, and all four seemed to be growing from the right places. He saw the animal only for a moment at a time, sitting next to him and wagging his silky tail with one paw in the air, as if greeting the gunslinger with a wave. Then it was gone, as quickly as it had appeared. It was the first vision he had seen in the desert apart from the apparitions of his long dead friends and his lost Ka-Tet.

Then there was the room. He thought it odd indeed to hallucinate being in such a room in the middle of the desert. The room was outfitted for winter weather, with a blazing fireplace, thick quilts on the bed, and heavy drapes on the single small window. Near the fire, there was a knotted rug and an old wooden rocking chair with yet another large, warm-looking quilt folded neatly over the back and a small basket filled with what appeared to be knitting supplies sitting in its seat.

The woman had become the most frequently occurring vision. He could sometimes see her in the chair, softly singing and working at a ball of yarn with her knitting needles flashing in the firelight, or else dozing by the warmth of the hearth with the dog at her feet. She had curly auburn hair that was usually pulled away from her face, and a smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks. What really struck him, however, were her eyes. She had beautiful hazel eyes that were so much like Eddie's, round and clear and full of life.

He saw these eyes for the first time one day after collapsing, exhausted from his endless trek through the dunes. Lying in the sand, with his head aching and sweat stinging his tired eyes and sunburned skin, he was startled when he opened his eyes and saw not the cloudless and unforgiving desert sky, but this beautiful woman, reaching a gentle hand toward him, her lips moving in silent speech. Then, as if dissolving in the blazing heat, she vanished.

Somehow, the gunslinger instinctively knew that this was the woman whose voice had been carried to him on the wind, though he never caught her at it. She and her dog, and that cozy little room, filled him with a warmth and hope that he could neither describe nor understand.

The specters of his past had almost completely gone away, and these new images kept coming to him more and more often as he trudged through the sand. All thoughts of Walter O'Dim and the Tower had been pushed to the back of his mind, and he was now wholly determined to find this woman, whoever she was, and to thank her for saving his life.

He tried his best to ignore the voice in the back of his head, teasingly chiding him for chasing these images that, for all he knew, did not even truly exist.


	5. The first glimpse

Audrey was sitting next to her bed, sponging the stranger's tired face, when it happened for the first time. The man's eyes fluttered open, gazing at her without focus, and his hand, resting on the blanket, rose a fraction of an inch into the air. She nearly leapt into the air, knocking the contents of her lap onto the floor, but stopped herself, not wishing to break her only basin or to startle the man in her bed. Instead, she carefully placed the basin on the low bedside table, stood, and then sat herself on the bed next to the man. He was blinking around at the room, and Audrey was unsure whether or not he actually saw his surroundings. She took his hand in hers and leaned closer to him.

"Can you hear me?" she asked softly. "Are you awake?"

The man's lips moved, but she could not hear what he was whispering. She leaned down, her ear so close to his mouth that they almost touched, and strained to hear him, but no sound came from his moving lips. She straightened up again, brushing the man's hair from his forehead, and looked into his eyes. They were a beautiful blue, the color of her faded denim jeans, and yet behind all their beauty there seemed to be an overwhelming sadness.

Audrey pursed her lips. She wanted so badly to speak to this man, to hear his tale and to share her own, and to find out what all that sadness was, lurking behind those bombardier's eyes.

She frowned to herself. _Bombardier's eyes_? Where had that thought come from? She had used the word "bombardier" perhaps three times in her entire life, and yet that word came into her mind at that instant as if it were part of her daily vocabulary. And, somehow, it was the perfect description for his beautiful eyes, which, she saw, had again closed.

She let go of his hand and sighed. She stood, taking up the basin, and left the bedroom.

In the kitchen, Audrey wrung out the rag she used to bathe the stranger and rinsed it and the basin. Sam trailed in a moment later, his tail wagging and his friendly face split into his doggishly handsome grin. She smiled down at him, then looked past him into the small bedroom at the man sleeping in her bed.

Audrey longed for the stranger to recover. She had been sleeping in her rocking chair for close to two weeks now, and she was aching for her comfortable mattress and cushy pillow. More than that, though, she longed for company. Since the snowstorm began, she hadn't been able to venture out very far, just to the barn and back to care for her other animals, and she hadn't spoken to any of the other Calla-folken since the stranger's arrival.

Audrey dried the basin and set it on the small kitchen table, then crossed to the stove where a soup pot full of broth was simmering for supper. She gave it a stir, then sat at the table with her knitting. She was working on a warm woolen sweater for the stranger to wear. The weather outside necessitated warm clothing, and the man had shown up in dirty, torn jeans and a thin cotton shirt that was practically ripped to rags. The jeans, at least, had been salvageable; a few patches and a good thorough washing had been enough to make them fit for wear again.

She knitted contentedly with one eye on the simmering soup, singing the Gaelic lullaby to herself as her needles clicked and flashed, churning out a tight cable knit square that grew larger with each passing minute. Sam, lying quietly beneath the table, gnawed on a ham bone he had been given as a special treat.

Maybe tomorrow, she thought to herself, she would finally get to meet the man who had consumed so much of her time and thoughts these last two weeks.

* * *

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	6. The doorway to Redemption

The gunslinger had seen so many doors just like this. They seemed to lead to nowhere, but he knew better. There did not appear to be anything but more dunes beyond this one, but the gunslinger knew that to open it would be to open a pathway into another world, perhaps another time, and, most certainly, another adventure.

This door was unlike the others, however. It was a simple wooden frame with a simple wooden door, just like the others had been, but there were subtle differences. None of the other doors had had molding, for instance. They had just been flat doors. Instead of a simple iron handle like those he had seen before, this door had a crystal knob with many facets, sparkling like a diamond in the desert sunlight.

The word across the top was written in gilded script, like the calligraphy he had seen his mother practice so many years ago in Gilead. The gunslinger squinted his eyes against the blinding sun, reading the word again.

"Redemption."

He had been standing here for a quarter of an hour, staring at this door, wondering what he would find on the other side. He looked beyond the door at the never-ending dunes, stretching out before him into oblivion. There was nothing ahead of him but more desolate sand, and he could stand it no longer. He would have to go through this door, no matter what lay beyond. Reaching out, he grasped the ornate handle and turned it, swinging the door open before him…


	7. Reawakening

Sam came into the kitchen, barking and pawing at Audrey's leg. She was at the stove, heating a pan to make gravy to go with her breakfast. She impatiently pulled her leg away, shushing the dog.

Persistence was a trait Sam was well known for. He was a very single-minded animal, and when he wanted something, he usually persevered until he got it. Most of the time, what he wanted was a long walk, a scrumptious marrow-filled bone leftover from the stockpot, or a scratch behind his furry ears.

This was so much more important than any of those things, though, and Sam knew it. The man in the bed was awake!

Sam pawed at Audrey's leg again, whining. When she brushed him away again, her impatience more obvious, he did something he had never done to anyone in his entire life. He bit her hand. Hard.

Audrey pulled her hand away, startled.

"Sam!" she scolded, looking shocked. "What in the world has gotten into you? You're being positively obnoxious!"

Sam gave a loud bark and turned tail, trotting into the bedroom with his tail held high. Curious, Audrey remover her pan from the hot stove and followed.

The stranger was sitting up in the bed, rubbing his head with one strong, tanned hand, his eyes closed. Audrey's breath caught in her throat.

Sam barked again, looking from his mistress to the strange man and then back again, wondering who would be the first to speak.

Humans, he privately thought, were very strange creatures. His mistress, for instance, was looking shy and nervous, patting the curly fur on her head into place and trying without success to brush the flour from her jeans. What a time for preening! The stranger, meanwhile, was still rubbing his temples and had barely opened his eyes long enough to take in the bedroom or its other inhabitants.

Audrey cleared her throat, unsure of what to say. She began to play with the hem of her sweater, rolling it between her slender fingers. The man looked up, those blue eyes of his taking in her appearance from head to toe. He took his hands from his temples, resting them on the quilt in front of her.

In a voice husky from disuse, he spoke to her.

"I heard you," he said hoarsely, looking directly into those hazel eyes, so much like Eddie's. "I heard you when I was crossing the desert. You were singing to me on the wind."

Audrey didn't answer him. She met his eyes unflinchingly and stopped fidgeting with her hem. He had heard her singing to him! She suddenly felt naked, standing there while he stared.

The man opened his mouth to speak again.

"Who," he asked seriously, his face inquisitive, "is Jeremiah the bullfrog?"


	8. Roland

"Jeremiah the bullfrog?" Audrey asked, confused. Then she remembered "Joy to the World," her favorite dish-scrubbing song, and laughed. The stranger was still looking at her with that serious expression, and she stifled her giggling, afraid he might think she was mocking him.

"I honestly haven't got the foggiest idea who Jeremiah the bullfrog was," she answered, coming fully into the bedroom and taking her seat in the chair next to his bed. "And I don't have a clue who you are, either."

"Well, that makes two of us," said the man gruffly, his brow furrowed. "Where am I?"

"You're in the Calla, on the edge of Mid-World," she replied. "My name is Audrey Moran. I've been caring for you. You've been dead to the world for about two weeks now."

"Calla Bryn-Sturgis?" asked Roland, his blue eyes searching Audrey's face.

"No, we're further east than that," she answered. "This is Calla Uhl-Chamot. Bryn-Sturgis is several dozen wheels away."

Roland nodded, his gaze not wavering. He reached up and rubbed his aching head again. What he wouldn't give for a bottle of Eddie's astin…

"Are you feeling alright?" asked Audrey, worry etched on her face. "What can I do to help?"

"Water," he said, finally looking away. "I'd like to wet my throat." He turned his appraising gaze on the rest of the room as Audrey left the room to get his drink. There was the rocking chair with the knitting basket and the quilt, and there was the rug by the hearth, in which a fire was burning bright, warming and illuminating the tiny bedroom.

Roland looked down at himself. He was tucked in under several layers of blankets and quilts, but he could tell he had no clothing on underneath the covers. His hair had grown long, falling just past his shoulders, but it felt clean and dry, and his face was clean-shaven and smooth. This woman, whoever she was, had taken care of him down to the last detail.

Audrey came back into the room, carrying a tin cup filled to the brim with cool water and a heavy white pitcher, also full. She handed the cup to Roland, who drained it without hesitation. He handed it back, and Audrey refilled it.

After his third cup, Audrey set the pitcher and cup on the bedside table.

"You don't want to drink too much too fast," she said, "or you'll make yourself sick."

"How did I get here, Audrey? Tell me, I beg."

"You staggered into the front yard sixteen days ago, just before the snowstorm hit. Sam- that's the dog- he found you and came to the barn to get me, and I brought you inside. You were half-frozen."

_And raving like mad about some tower and a man called Walter O'Dim_, she thought to herself, but chose not to add out loud.

"What's your name?" she asked him. He cleared his throat and looked up at her.

"Roland. Roland Deschain, of Gilead."

Audrey gasped. How many times had she heard the story since arriving in this strange world? This man and his band of gunslingers had saved the children of the Callas! Surely this was not the same man... It couldn't be!

"Roland of Gilead?" Audrey asked, shocked. "_The_ Roland of Gilead? The gunslinger that defeated the monsters that had been raiding the villages and destroying the children? Who traveled into Thunderclap to save the Beams?"

"The same," grunted Roland. "Along with my friends Eddie and Susannah and…" his voice trailed off, and he looked away.

"And Jake! And there was a billybumbler, as well, right? Named Oy?"

"Aye, you say true." This young woman could not possibly imagine how hard it was to hear the boy's name thrown out so casually. A lump was threatening to form in Roland's throat. He swallowed hard, hoping to keep it at bay.

"But that's just not possible!" Audrey exclaimed, shaking her head. "You can't be the same man."

"I assure you," said the gunslinger gruffly, "I am. What makes that so hard to believe?"

"Because…" began Audrey, her voice shaking slightly. She took a deep breath. "Because, the day the wolves were killed… it…"

"What is it?"

"Well, it happened over a century ago…"


End file.
